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1989-03-24 · Bligh Reef, Prince William Sound, Alaska, USA · Aframax crude oil tanker · United States flag
The US-flagged Aframax tanker Exxon Valdez struck Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound at 00:04 on 24 March 1989. The bridge was under the sole watch of Third Mate Gregory Cousins — an unlicensed configuration for that waterway — while Captain Joseph Hazelwood was below in his cabin. Cousins missed the turn back into the shipping lane after the vessel had deviated south to avoid ice. Post-casualty testing found Hazelwood over the alcohol limit, though he was later acquitted of drunkenness at the wheel. The 37,000-tonne spill was small by tanker standards but devastating in the sensitive sound: Prince William Sound herring fisheries never fully recovered, and the ecological baseline shifted permanently. Exxon paid $2 billion in cleanup, $1 billion to the state of Alaska, and $507.5 million in punitive damages after 25 years of litigation.
Exxon Valdez established the modern shipboard drug-and-alcohol regime that every seafarer now works under: pre-employment testing, random testing, post-incident testing under the USCG framework and its international clones. It also established the third mate's absolute duty of navigation care — Cousins was the one held legally responsible, not the absent captain. The case is drilled at every US STCW academy as a warning against normalising the practice of leaving the OOW alone in constrained waters.
Directly caused the US Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA-90) — mandatory double-hull tankers in US waters by 2015. Reshaped US Coast Guard drug-and-alcohol testing regime for merchant seafarers. Drove the OPA-90 unlimited-liability regime that reshaped tanker P&I pricing worldwide.